An interview with actor and filmmaker Benja Petty. He discusses living with mental health struggles and how it inspired his latest short film Living Proof.
I just want to start by congratulating you on the Demonis winning the Best Georgia Horror Film Award! How did it feel for you when you heard the news?
We knew it was nominated when we went in and we knew that we probably had a good chance to win. Since we all have been attached to this project for so long it’s nice to see it getting the recognition it deserves. I was 19 at the time when I got asked to read for it and to still be with the project at 22 is nothing short of, I think incredible would be to undersell it.
Are there any future plans for The Demoni's?
I know that Danielle (show creator) wrote a bunch [of episodes] going into even a second season. The way it worked is that it was a sizzle reel and they’re pitching it around so it’ll hopefully get picked up. As of now, I haven't heard too much since the film festival. So I'm sure that they are working on something that we're just not aware of yet.
You also have another project, Living Proof, which focuses on the struggles of living with depression. How did that project come together?
Living Proof started as an idea I had about portraying the day-to-day life of struggling with depression. I haven’t seen it portrayed in a way that isn't necessarily heroic, but just somebody surviving. I started with a story I can tell really well, my own, and that story is about the thoughts that you obsess over when you are depressed. A lot of that script came from what I journaled back in December of 2021.
How did you come up with the name Living Proof?
I got the idea for the title from a song called If I Surrender by Citizen Soldier, specifically this lyric that says, “Will anyone believe the hell of being me before I decide to be the dying proof?” I took that and turned it to if you are still being an example for others; if you are enduring and bearing the unasked-for but necessary responsibility of mental illness, then you are the living proof. I was very afraid to put out living proof once it was done, leading to a lot of iterations of the script, and there are times when I wish I'd put more in.
There’s this one line where you say, “Someday I’ll be grateful for this” and I was wondering if you could explain a bit more about what you meant by that?
“Someday I'll be grateful for this”, it's this idea of holding on. People don’t develop character because things were easy or nothing happened to them, and so it’s this idea of “I know it's going to get better, but that doesn’t really help me now.” That was a big reason why I wanted to make this film, because I wanted to produce something that was, like a hand to hold. It wasn’t a particularly upbeat project; I wanted to put out something that wasn’t so much an “I get it”, but something that shows how much it sucks to be going through this and while there is not much to be grateful for during this period, you’re always grateful that you stuck to your guns and you survived once it passes.
Maybe you'll be grateful someday, but not right now. It's tough to be grateful for the way you're living or even the way you are sometimes. I think it's tough to admit that you are just unhappy with everything going on. I mean, there was another version of the script where I talked about my family saying how this was just a normal way to feel.
Everybody knows that it will get better. But with Living Proof, I wanted it to be the line between points A and B. Like you know, at some point that there is an end to it and you'll be happy you got there but what do you do in the meantime?
And that, to me, was Living Proof. It sucks. It really does. And that's the point.
Has the film been a source of catharsis for viewers?
Yes, absolutely! I want to tell stories that matter to people and offer that connection. I was fortunate that I could do it with Living Proof by just talking candidly about myself. I believe when people can see a little bit of themselves on screen, they feel like that in turn and if other people are seeing it and liking it, they feel like maybe it's okay for them to speak about their problems at the very least. Even if they don't, they feel like they've been heard and that's important. I quite literally was putting myself on display and trying to be heard and people received it very well. So like I said, whatever I did for them, they did the same for me 100%.
Towards the end of Living Proof, there’s a short memorial dedicated to Alec Flynn, could you explain why you decided to include that in the film?
Yes, I decided to put a little tribute towards him. I want to say that it came around the time we finished shooting. I had never spoken publicly about Alec when he committed suicide. I remember when it happened the school didn't really talk about it at all. I think they brought in a grief counselor for like a day or something. After that, it just got swept under the rug. Their reason, I think, was that they didn't want any repeat offenders and I thought that was the worst way to go about it because he was suffering in silence.
I never talked about it. I guess I never acknowledged it too publicly until probably a couple of years later. I finally started posting about it a little bit and then I had this idea of like it would be really nice to immortalize him in a way since I have this project. I didn't tell anybody I was going to be doing this, other than my best friend who was very close to him. I hoped that it would be a really pleasant surprise to see him come up at the end of the short film and that there would be this sort of surprise of like, “Oh no, we didn't forget about him,” and there's still someone out there trying to fight this good fight when it comes to mental health and mental illness and trying to put him at the forefront.
Like he's someone who didn't make it and it's very much tragic as it is. I mean, the number of people still paying tribute to him and the impact and in fact, as I said, my best friend was very close to him. Has a whole tattoo on his back about him, and there are a bunch of people who have done the same, and there are still people trying to keep this candle burning. When it comes to him, I think that is what he deserved. And I wanted people to be surprised when they saw that. And one of the people I did communicate to that I was doing this was his mother. And that was probably one of the coolest moments of my whole life she said in a series of texts I sent with her. But she said, what you have done for Alec I will never forget. And that's probably one of the highest achievements I've ever had in my life.
So it was more about doing what I thought that my school should have done and another kid like him too, a couple of years before him did the same thing and they swept him under the rug too. I guess that's the stigma around it. If it happens. It's sort of like cancer in that even if you say the word, it's taboo and you're probably going to catch it or something like that. Whereas the whole idea was about finally speaking about something that had been on my mind and waiting on my mind constantly in terms of the subject matter of living proof. And I thought, well, what better way to bring that full circle than to put Alec at the end of it? So I thought it would be something that was sort of, I say, immortalising him. I mean, this isn't some masterpiece.
The remembrance that he should have had back in high school?
Yeah, exactly. Like, knowing that I created this thing and there will always be a part of him that's out there means a lot to me, and it meant a lot to the people around him. And that certainly made the whole thing worth it. And I felt like it was that sort of reception that he always would have gotten. And another thing too. Something that always bothered me is I know from my best friend that he always thought that I guess because it's funny how the dynamics of high school work versus when you're out in the real world, but, like, you know, if you're booking not booking, but, like, getting cast. Like the lead in school plays, you're sort of, like, looked at differently and almost like a hierarchy when it comes to high school theatre. And he always thought that I was like apparently he always thought that I was really cool. And it's just something I think about all the time, and it's like, man, did he ever think to reach out or did he feel, like, intimidated, or did he feel like he couldn't? I thought about that a lot.
What did he think of me? And I wish I had helped create a more conducive environment at that time for people like myself and him to just talk. But that's part of it, you think about that thing a lot, but there's nothing you can do about that. But the best I can do now is try to give him some sort of legacy or at least show people the legacy he had created and showcase the impact he had on others.
We were just kids who are really sad sometimes and just would like to know that we are still more than what it is we are enduring. The whole thing bothers me to know and it still does, of course, but I think the only thing you can do about it is trying to do what I've done and more, just try to try to help in a way that helps you as well. Offer some community and connection.
And so you bring these ideas and elements into your future. The script, the horror movie that you're talking about.
Yeah, it's not so much focused on mental health, but it's more like I don't want to give away the plot or anything like that because if I can be vain for a moment, I'm really proud of the idea. It's basically the character starts with insomnia and it's a take on the paranormal. What if it was real? I think one of the horrifying parts of it is that it's this world that you don't understand and don't know if it's real or not. But what if there is this universe where you can come to a point where it's at least in some corner of this universe, it is known that this thing is real? And that sort of the plot is, like, at some point well, I'm trying to talk around. Like it's a big twist, but basically there's this part of this universe that just exists on top of our whole plane of understanding. And to try to reach beyond that would be not too difficult, but just not really worth the time to try to understand. So people just don't. And I think that is a wonderful commentary on a lot of things.
Sort of like what we just talked about, where there's something that maybe people don't go through, so it doesn't really exist to them. If it doesn't happen to them, it's not real. That thing like this dissonance of information and I think you see it across all walks of life, whether that's politically or socially or what have you. There are some things that are just too big to imagine and sometimes it's not people's fault, but other times it's like, well, it's definitely. Real. I don't know why you don't think it's real. That's sort of the concept of it. And there's other projects I want to write as well. One of the things I want to do for Living Proof is create. I want to take more of a directorial and producer sort of role.
In Terms of finding people who have stories not necessarily similar to mine, but stories that they want to share, particularly when it comes to experiences that I know absolutely nothing about. Whether it's someone of color, I don't know what it's like to live that life, but I would love to help someone tell that story. So obviously I wouldn't act in it, but I would love to help write and direct and be able to share someone's story if they have something to say. That's what I want to do and sort of turn that into, like a mental health universe. So try to take a bunch of those stories and do something similar to what I did with Living Proof. And I think with a bigger budget of more than, like, $80, I think we could probably do a lot more, which I think is something interesting. I think I'll mention living proof had literally no budget. Like I took the cast or not the cast, everybody involved in the project, which is three people. Yeah, for including myself. I took them to dinner. So that was the payment, I suppose that's what everybody was cool with.
So, yeah, that was pretty much the budget of Living Proof. I think if I can create a little more around it and maybe pitch it, I think that would probably be the best thing for Living Proof and probably wouldn't plan to do much without that funding because, God, it was stressful. I spent more on gas, I think, than I did, like, travelling from west to East Georgia, basically all across Atlanta for like three days straight than I did on the actual film.
Those are your current projects at the moment?
Yeah, just doing a bunch of writing. And I was in a horror movie that I'll tell you, this is one of the things I am NDA's out of my mind when it comes to this project, but there is a project called The Legend of Gilbert Fly. I will say this is how secretive they are with this particular project I went through. And to make this part brief, I auditioned for two roles in this movie. I don't even think I can say my character's name, but there were two different roles I went through and I got called back from one of them. It came down to me, and I think one other guy, he ended up booking it. And then like three weeks later, they offered me another role. So that's why I booked that and got onto that project, which was a horror movie, which was fantastic. But they didn't tell you anything about the script. So when I was auditioning and went in for The Call Back, I really thought it was more of a comedy. But then I booked it and they sent me the script. And when I actually read it, I was like, oh my God, this is a horror movie.
I don't know how I got this. I didn't know that this is what this event was. So it turns out that I want to call them characters that other people were given for their characters. They were able to tell it was a horror movie. But on my particular side, you really couldn't. It was just a comedic tone and like, it was a funny scene. So yeah, I think that's about all I can say. In fact, even when the film is released, there's still a window. I can't even talk about it, so really? Yes. Normally when you sign NDAs, it's like one page. And it's just like you put the date and it's like, you're not going to tell anyone, are you? And you sign and that's your NDA. But for this one, it was like I started seeing things. It was a few pages long, but then I started seeing things or seeing things like section one A, section two dash B. Not the articles are broken exactly. It was like I had to sign a bunch of documents, but this one was like instead of comparatively it's like, you're not going to tell anyone.
This one is like, listen, if you do tell people, this is what is going to happen to you. So I was like, okay. I didn't even know I could tell people that I booked it until later during the filming process. They were like, yeah, you can tell people you have the job. There are just a few things you have to keep secret, like the locations and whatnot where we shot, things like that.
It's so funny because that's not the impression I got when I got on set. But when I was given— I woke up to three different emails of an agreement I had to sign, a contract and then an NDA. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. I felt like Bougie as shit, to be honest. Because I was like, man, this is the longest NDA I've had to sign, but at the same time, it's cool to say I signed an NDA. But I'm so stressed whenever I talk about this project because I have to think I have to remember what I signed. What can I actually talk about? From what I hear, the editing is well underway for that one and I think early next year is, I think, the window I was given. So hopefully that's what ends up happening.
Words by Fardeen Sheikh